Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

Freud, continued...

"'I wouldn't believe it, even if I saw it. I saw what he did to Id and Superego and Complex and Syndrome...' " [4 Fuzzy companions of Ruth Otheris, a psychiatrist, named after Freudian terms. Other refs. to these names, not in DB.]

Harrison, Harry. The Hammer and the Cross. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 75.

"All this began, he said, many generations before, maybe a hundred and fifty years ago. At that time a great jarl of the Frisians--the people on the North Sea coast opposite England--had been a pagan. But because of the tales that had been told him by missionaries in Frankland and from England, and because of the old kinship felt between his people and the now-Christian English, he had decided to take baptism.

As was the custom, baptism was to take place publicly, in the open air, in a great tank that the missionaries had constructed for all to see. After the jarl Radbod had been immersed and baptized, the nobles of his court were to follow and soon after that the whole earldom, all the Frisians. Earldom, not kingdom, for the Frisians were too proud and too independent to allow anyone the title of king. " [May be other refs., not in DB.]

Pg. 37: "Now was the time to push ahead across the estuary of the Elbe, to the spot where the coastline turned north to the North Frisian islands, to Jutland, to the South Danes. "; Pg. 96: "Shef reflected further. So much for his hope, once upon a time, of rescuing oppressed Englishmen from Danish rule here in Denmark. Still, it was strange that the Ditmarshers did not speak Danish, living next to them as they did. Strange too what they did speak: not English, nor Danish, nor yet exactly that strange language the priest had spoken this morning, a kind of German. Something with bits of all of them, and yet perhaps most similar to the Frisian Shef had got used to hearing from the men of the islands off the Dutch coast. "; Pg. 137: "Thorvin's followers also included the alien priests, the Frisians, those whose native language was not Norse. "

Frisian

galaxy

2200

Drake, David. The Voyage. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 12.

[Year is estimated.] Pg. 12: "'On Nieuw Friesland,' Ned said. 'In the Frisian Defense Force. I'm Reserve Ensign Slade, but I'm from Tethys originally.' " [One of the main characters is Frisian.]; Pg. 14: "...the fusion-powered tanks Ned had learned to operate and deploy on Friesland. "; Pg. 122: "There was a lot of information on Friesland, in the Slammers' archives. Uncle Don had never said anything about it, except that he'd seen the prettiest sunset of his life once on Taprobane. " [Not all refs. in DB.]

Frisian

galaxy

2500

Drake, David. The Tank Lords. New York: Baen (1997); pg. 282.

Pg. 282: "'Heuvelmans of Friesland,' Esa said conventionally. 'Past couple contracts have been let on Terra, good products...' "; Pg. 379: "..though a few were private ventures (including that of the Dutch consortium which founded Friesland). "

Pg. 150-151: "This was a length of shore of not more than twelve miles, inhabited by fifth-century B.C. Sarmatians and thirteenth-century A.D. Frisians. "

Frisian

world

1905

Green, Roland J. "Written by the Wind: A Story of the Draka " in Drakas! (S. M. Sterling, ed.) New York: Baen (2000); pg. 109.

"Jahn decided that the loader's gesture counted as a prayer, and touched the pocket where the little crucifix rested, that Peter Jahn had worn across the North Sea. The crucifix had helped his great-great-grandfather sail his boat and his family from the Frisian Islands, through Napoleon's patrols and North Sea storms, then kept him alive for six year on the lower deck of a British seventy-four.

"We passed four Tuareg women in the streets of Sinder. One looked like the woman in my dreams, then I thought all four did, then I thought ever woman I saw--Songhai, Hausa, Fulani, Tuareg--all looked like that woman. "

"About a twenty-minute drive from Kanab, across the state line, lies the Arizona Strip, a stretch of dry, purplish scrubland that neither God nor government will touch, or has ever touched. It is a white man's reservation of sorts, a place of polygamy and persecution, a place that has withered into its own past.

At one edge of this strip sits a town once called Short Creek, a ramshackle polygamist community made of tin and tar paper and cinder blocks. In the early 1950s, during a lunar eclipse, dozens of federal deputies swept down on the town, dragging the wives screaming into the roads, while the children--all of them-were thrown into cars and vans and driven away into the darkness. " [Some more refs., not in DB.]

"Gaia's Soldiers were more concerned with genetically engineered crops and bacteria than trivial modifications to insignificant species like humans--and they wouldn't have used radioisotopes if the fate of the planet depended on it. "

Gaian

Australia

2050

Egan, Greg. Permutation City. New York: HarperPrism (1995); pg. 56.

"Maria felt her patience desert her. 'What would you rather do? Be humble in the presence of nature, and hope you'll be rewarded for it? You think Mother Gaia is going to forgive us, and put everything right--just as soon as we throw away our wicked computers and promise to stop trying to fix things ourselves?' Should have made that 'Nanny Gaia.' "

Her 'yeah' sounded like 'jah.' 'Pagans, witches, whatever you want to call us. We worship the Goddess, which basically is Gaia, the Earth. We see her as a living being. We try to live inside her rhythms. To be clean and peaceful and reverent.'

Jeff, on the other side of her, said, 'Sounds like the Boy Scouts.' Then we had to explain to her what Boy Scouts are and how they're different from Hitler Youth, which turned out to be tricky. "

'We--the newly formed Gaian, Extropian, and Psychic Coalition--the PEGS--are willing to move boldly into the new era to complete and instantaneous communication. There will be no death in the Dome. We shall only grow in wisdom and in luminosity. The dome will be self-sustaining, solar-powered, made of light, so that it will not deplete the Earth's bounty any longer. Those of you who are Gaians will have the opportunity to resolve the dilemma of having to sustain your bodies by killing and, what is worse, by being forced to use technologies which are proving deadly to our Mother Earth. You can simply leave your body behind, but not by dying. By living more fully. For those of you who wish to become pure information--that time has now--' " [More, pg. 351, etc.]

Gaian

Canada

2027

Atack, Chris. Project Maldon. New York: Baen (1997); pg. 334.

"For better or worse, the Rooftop Cat was a child of Gaea, rooted in the broken city and the life springing from it. "

"Then there were ten techs working at terminals... I recognized many of them, even Gaea, who was my age and with whom I'd been so angry because her parents hadn't sent her off to Victoria when the raids started. " [Not a reference to Gaianism, but a character name. Some other refs. to this character in novel.]

"'There are carnivores, but not many. Symbiosis is the basic fact of life. That, and worship. Whistlestop says all the higher life forms owe allegiance to a godhead, and the seat of divinity is the hub. I've been thinking of a goddess that rules the whole circle of the land. I call her Gaea, for the Greek mother.'

Cirocco was interested, in spite of herself. 'What is Gaea, Calvin? Some sort of primitive legend, or maybe the control room of this thing?'

'I don't know. Themis is a lot older than Whistlestop, and a lot of is unknown to him, too.'

'But who runs it? You said there were many races in here. Which one? Or do they cooperate?'

'Again, I don't know... Maybe machines, or a race that stays in the hub. That may be the source of worship. But Whistlestop is sure there's a hand on the wheel.' " [Many other refs. to Gaea, and to ideas which are akin to normative Gaianism, in book, not all in DB.]

"'Captain!' he shouted, just before they disappeared. 'Gaby shouldn't have called this place Themis. Call it Gaea.' "; Pg. 103: "...but Themis-Gaea would not be forgotten. A ship would arrive soon, and it would be loaded for bear.

'All right,' she said. 'Gaea should have some communications facilities somewhere.' "

Pg. 152: "The meaning of 'be with Gaea' was clear, though she did not use the word Gaea. She referred at once to her world, to the Goddess who was the world, and to the concept of returning to the soil. There was no connotation of immortality. "; Pg. 153: "'Ah,' the healer crooned. 'Gaea makes mistakes, it is well known. Take, for instance, the one with whom I was first hindsexed, many myriarevs ago.' "; Pg. 154: "She described Gaea variously as wise, endlessly inventive, needlessly elaborate, and a silly fool. She also observed that Gaea enjoyed the occasional joke as well as the next deity--this while staring in astonishment at Bill's buttocks. "

"'So you don't compete for land or food. Could that reason be religious? Do they worship another God?'

He laughed. 'Worship? You put your song together oddly. There is only one Goddess, even to the angels. Gaea is known to all races within her.' " [Much more about the relationship of the moon-sized being Gaea to its inhabitants.]

'I am Gaea, the great and wise. I am the world, I am the truth, I am the law, I am--'

'You're the whole planet, then? April was telling the truth?'

Maybe it wasn't wise to interrupt a Goddess, but Cirocco was feeling like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel. She had to fight it somehow.

'I wasn't through,' Gaea rumbled. 'But yes, I am. I am the earth Mother, though I am not of your Earth. All life springs from me. I am one of a pantheon that reaches to the stars. Call me a Titan.' "

Gaian

Gaia

2046

Bear, Greg. Eternity. New York: Warner Books (1988); pg. 21.

Pg. 21: Chapter title: "Gaia, Island of Rhodos, Greater Alexandreian Oikoumene, Year of Alexandros 2331-2342 "; Pg. 24: "Patrikia's Earth was not the Gaia Rhita had grown up on; history had gone differently there. "; Pg. 26: "Instead, she had miscalculated and come to Gaia. " [Gaia appears to be the name of an alternative/parallel dimension Earth. The word is used frequently, but apparently not in reference to the religion of Gaianism or the normative philosophical concept.]

"Minoru stood in what he hoped the natives took as an attitude of respect. After all, on shipboard--and even in their tiny habitation domes--many human crewmembers kept little Shinto or Buddhist or Christian or Gaian shrines. "

Gaian

galaxy

2500

Dickson, Gordon R. Other. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 36.

"I am Antaeus, he thought--wrestler and son of ancient Greek gods, Poseidon, of the sea and Gaea, goddess of Earth. The wrestler Antaeus, whose strength was renewed each time he touched his mother, the Earth. But, unlike Antaeus, I draw my strength fresh and fresh again, not like... "

"'The 'clinician' mode was therefore developed as part of the Gaian Expedient--one further device for keeping surviving populations in various types of hunter-gatherer existence until the research taste, the Project, could be completed. The clinicians were intended for use by those on the ground, the peregrini, when myth and taboo seemed in danger of losing their efficacy and when persuasion had been to no avail.' " [Other refs., not in DB.]

"He wore the green uniform of the Yggdrasilian novice, one of those young people undergoing the arduous five years of basic training before being posted to Neffelheim, to Jotunheim, or to the Gaian Expedient as peregrini. " [Of course, the title of this book includes the word 'Gaian,' so there are refs. throughout to the concept.]

"And he knew that without management these clusters of Homo sapiens would in time grow strong enough to again imperil themselves and the Earth. At least, this was the best that we could hope for.

We broke our project into three tasks:

1. to design a self-sustaining community with an anticipated lifespan of 200 years.

2. to protect surviving ecosystems against man (The Gaian Expedient);

3. to reintegrate man into nature (The Project). ";

Pg. 265: "The center of the Yggdrasilian complex, on the largest of the islands, contained the administrative offices both for Yggdrasil and for the Gaian Expedient, the means of controlling and maintaining whatever mainland population might survive. Everything was initially buried safely beneath sea level, although we knew a day might come when the surface residences might be habitable once again. "

"'You know that this is why our law is called the Lex Gaiae, the code of Gaia, and why in Yulok, although we live in one place, we do so only because Gaia suffers us. It is why we have many fables and funny stories for our children, all teaching the absurdity of the idea that the land can be owned.' "

Pg. 467: "...young technical in the Biological Section at Neffelheim had predicted his meteoric rise. Back then he had seemed merely another conscientious young worker, anxious to do his part for the Project and for the Gaian Expedient.... of the awesome double responsibilities they bore as members of the Arborea (responsible for both the Project and the Gaian Expedient)... "; Pg. 475: "'...They're fed up with the Gaian Expedient and the Project. They never want to hear of them again. They want to enjoy.' Asa smiled ruefully. 'Maybe that's human.' "; Pg. 480: "'...There is no more Gaian Expedient. No more Master of Norriya. There is only you...' " [Many refs. throughout novel, not in DB.]

"...Asa distinguishes finally between the Gaian Expedient and the Transformation. The Expedient was just that, something the Old Ones believed had to be done for the good of man and Earth. It was a calculated risk, and a final chance. The Transformation, on the other hand, is inspired only by fear and selfishness. Eventually it will undermine all cooperation, between man and man, between man and other species, between man and Earth. It is, Asa says, a form of death. "

Gaian

galaxy

1000004000

Anderson, Poul. Genesis. New York: Tor (2000)

[Book jacket:] "Astronaut Christian Brannock has lived to see artificial intelligence develop to a point where a human personality can be uploaded into a computer, achieving a sort of hybrid immortality. He welcomes that because the technology will make it possible for him to achieve his dream and explore the stars.

A billion years later, Brannock is dispatched to Earth to check on some strange anomalies. While there, he meets Laurinda Ashcroft, another hybrid upload. Brannock and Laurinda join forces and investigate Gaia, the supermind dominating the planet, and learn the truth of her shocking and terrifying secret plans for Earth. " [Many Gaia refs., not in DB.]

Gaian

Greece

2026

Moffett, Judith. Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream. New York: St. Martin's Press (1992); pg. xxx.

"The Gaians have opened missions in Lima and Athens. "

Gaian

Louisiana

2026

Moffett, Judith. Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream. New York: St. Martin's Press (1992); pg. xxx.

"Klanspeople tried to firebomb the Baton Rouge [Gaian] Mission but the fire was brought under control by vigilantes. "

"'But if we find no clue of life here, then we ourselves must become the first Martians. Here, we shall replicate the terrestrial biosphere and help Mother Gaia herself give birth to a second living world.'

Townsend smiled, but felt inwardly annoyed in the deliberate mention of a pagan goddess, sure to irk Major Llewellyn. Sherman's scientific rationalist pose had already caused enough friction with the other woman. The doctor might be a famous genius, but apparently lacked something in the common-sense department. Why doesn't anyone on this mission besides me every think about maintaining group cohesiveness? "

Gaian

New Mexico

2026

Moffett, Judith. Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream. New York: St. Martin's Press (1992); pg. xxx.

"The Gaians... The gafr of the New Mexico Mission is a 52-year-old Navajo medicine man who was picked to be trained with the kids. "

Gaian

Peru

2026

Moffett, Judith. Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream. New York: St. Martin's Press (1992); pg. xxx.

"The Gaians have opened missions in Lima and Athens. "

Gaian

Roman Empire

500 C.E.

Garfinkle, Richard. Celestial Matters. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 10.

Pg. 10: "...but I had come to dream of once again walking across Gaea's stationary ground, and laying my motion-wracked body on her peaceful grassy surface, and enjoying the stillness of that static globe that lay at the center of the endlessly moving cosmos. "; Pg. 76: "I had to calculate how it would behave in the denser air of the lower spheres, in the water-laden atmosphere just above the earth, and in the solid body of Gaea herself. "; Pg. 340: "I relaxed and listened through the flow of water to the comforting heartbeat of Gaea, mother of all things; the deep pulse of the earth washing over my temples welcomed me back to the folds of her bosom. " [Not actually a ref. to Gaianism, but a reference to an ancient Greek concept.]

Gaian

Texas

1996

Leon, Mark. The Unified Field. New York: Avon Books (1996); pg. 10.

Footnote: "The Gaia War " [Referring to a previous book by the author. Also pg. 38, 58.]

"On Troicinet, the rituals of life and death were conducted in temples dedicated to the earth-goddess Gaea. "

Gaian

United Kingdom

2026

Moffett, Judith. Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream. New York: St. Martin's Press (1992); pg. xi.

"Why? the answer reveals O'Hara's Gaian sympathies. 'Well, I don't want to go too far out on a limb, but if it turns out to be true that prehistoric people could tune in to the Earth's magnetic currents directly, then I'm betting we can learn to do it too. We've got the time transceivers, they'll help. And who knows what that might lead to, in the way of connecting up to the Earth again?' "

"Do I really believe in Gaea? In the planet as a living whole, a composite of dynamics rhythmically adjusting its chemistry and temperatures within the range necessary to sustain life? And if I accept as an article of faith the sacredness of the life not only on the planet but of the planet, then isn't it the height of presumption to suppose the planet wants to be habitable for humankind? "

"'...Or you have this whole way of looking at women as either nurturers or as children who need constant protection. Many of the world's ancient Goddess religions represent the Goddess as having three faces: those of the Mother, Daughter, and Crone or Destroyer. And a number of recent books help women focus on two of those aspects: Gaea, the nurturing Mother, and her daughter Kore...' "

"Some were just mad, and some wanted the whole world to revert to some kind of bucolic Gaian vision, which meant a radically reduced population and very little technology. Terrorist attacks from various quarters were on the rise. "

"He supposed that lions were extinct now. But maybe not. He'd also heard, dimly and distantly, that vast changes were taking place in the world because of the work of the Gaians, an underground terrorist movement that used nanotch in many illegal ways to restore wilderness. They could dissolve the infrastructure with metal-corroding nanotech. Cut down on the human population by putting sterility drugs in the water. So that the Earth could breath again. "

Gaian

world

-105 B.C.E.

Leiber, Fritz. "The Wrong Branch " in Swords in the Mist in The Three of Swords. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday (1973; c. 1968); pg. 417.

"It is even whispered that on one occasion they lived a life in that strangest of worlds variously called Gaia, Midgard, Terra, and Earth, swashbuckling there... "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 311-312.

"That was what he was being told. Harry had said, on the tape,

'I've spent twenty years of my life as a biologist. You, Arthur, kept me up to date in other disciplines; you got my mind working fifteen years ago when you gave me Lovelock's book on 'Gaia.' Recent events have made me dig out some of my own theories and speculations, made after reading Lovelock & Margulis. We've talked about them, off and on, but I was never so sure of myself that I put them down on paper. Now I'm pretty sure, but I'm too weak to put them on paper, so... this.

'Gaia is the entire Earth, and she's come alive, she's been an organic whole, a single creature, for over two billion years now. We can't make complete analogies between Gaia and human beings, or dogs or cats or birds, because until recently we've never studied actual independent organisms. Dogs & cats & birds--and humans--are not independent. We are bits and pieces of Gaia. So is every other living thing on the Earth.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 312.

"'So Gaia, the Earth, is the first independent organism we've studied. I'll call her a 'planetism.' A planetism is made up of plants and animals and microorganisms, and these are made up of cells, or are themselves cells. Cells are made up of cytoplasm and organelles and so on. An organism regulates itself with hormones, neurotransmitters, and it does its work and gets its nutrition with enzymes and other substances . . . all organized, on schedule, synergistic. Self-controlled.

'Gaia does her work with ecosystems. Like any organism, a planetism has a schedule and certain goals to meet. She grows and develops and goes through different stages in her life. Sometimes she undergoes radical shifts, destroying whole ecosystems. Maybe she's experimenting in ways that smaller organisms cannot; she reaches a dead end, clears some of the slate, and starts over. I don't know. But ultimately she has to do what all living things do--mature and reproduce.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 312.

"'How can a planetism make others like herself? She came into being--probably--without outside interference, though maybe she's the offspring of another planetism. Maybe life was seeded here a long, long time ago. I don't think so, frankly. I think most planetisms have no parents, at least not right now, and so they're free to develop on their own schedule. This takes a long, long time, but eventually she finds a way to reproduce. She develops a reproductive strategy.

'The planetism has found ways to use more and more of her raw materials and surface area. She dominated the oceans, then spread plants and animals out to conquer the barren continents. These plants and animals had somehow become specially suited to life on land. I suspect more than random chance was at work, but I'm too weak to argue about that. It's irrelevant to my scheme.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 313.

"'Now, after ages, humans are here, and we're not doing too badly. We've got an organ as important as the legs on an amphibian--a highly developed brain. Suddenly, Gaia is becoming self-aware, and looking outward. She's developing eyes that can look far into space and begin to understand the environment she has to conquer. She's reaching puberty. Soon she's going to reproduce.

'I know you're way ahead of me now. You're saying, 'That means human beings are the Earth's gonads.' And I am saying that, but the analogy is weak at best. In time Gaia would probably have sacrificed everything on Earth--all her ecosystems--to promote human beings. Because we're more than gonads. We are the makers of spores and seeds, we are the ones who understand what Gaia is, and we will soon know how to make other worlds come alive. We will carry Gaia's biological information out into space, on spaceships.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 313-314.

"'You know, this idea puts a lot of problems in perspective. Gaia has nurtured us, but she has also goaded us, and sometimes tormented us. She's used all of her resources to make sure we don't feel too comfortable. Diseases that used to help regulate ecosystems have suddenly become stimulants. We're working hard to control all the diseases that harm us, and in doing so, we're understanding life itself, and coming to understand Gaia. So Gaia uses diseases to stimulate and instruct. Is it any real coincidence, you think that in the twentieth century, we've been hit by so many retrovirus and immune system epidemics? We can't solve these epidemics without understanding life to the nth degree. Gaia is regulating us, regulating herself, making herself ready for puberty.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 314.

"'Because that's what would have happened. Gaia would have sent us out, and we would have carried her within our spaceships. Maybe we would have made Earth unlivable, and that would be one more reason to leave the seed pod, because it's all dead and shriveled. But that would only be natural. Maybe we would have preserved Earth and gone outward. It's like the dilemma for parents who either make life a hell for their kids to get them out, or the kids... get out on their own...

'Of course, Gaia isn't the only planetism. There are probably billions of others, some of them pat of seeding networks--planetisms with parents. Some are independent. And when they get out into the galaxy, they find they are in competition. Suddenly they're part of an even larger, much more complex system--a galactic ecology. Planetisms and their extensions--intelligences, technological civilizations--then develop strategies to compete, and to eliminate competition.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 314.

"'Some planetisms take the obvious route. They exploit and try to spread rapidly. They're like parasites, or young diseases that haven't learned how to live harmlessly within a host. Other planetisms react by seeking and destroying the extensions of these parasites. Eventually, I suppose, if the galaxy itself is to come alive--become a 'galactism'--it's going to have to knit together the extensions of all its planetisms, put them in order. So the parasites either fit in and contribute or they are eliminated. But in the meantime, it's a jungle out there.' "

Gaian

world

1997

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 315.

"'You talked to me a long while back about Frank Drinkwater. Drinkwater, and others like him, have maintained for years that there is no other intelligent life in our galaxy. He claims that the lack of radio signals from distant stars provides the proof. He also thought the lack of von Neumann machines confirmed that we are alone. He was too impatient. Now, obviously he's wrong.

'We've been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that's why. Planetisms that don't know enough to keep quiet, get eaten.' "

Pg. 117: "They were talking now about retasking the Gaia spaceprobe, which had been sent out on the heels of Tolkien... " [Also pg. 175-176, 311-313, 367.]; Pg. 387: "They've got a fully equipped Gaiaist contemplarium out in number two hydroponics tube. Hover in lotus, listen to whale song and watch the great green mother of us all spin before you. "

"What was worse, science itself was courting superstition and ceasing to be true science. Science was heading off in the direction of magic. Not only did theories flourish about time travel, about alternative realities, about the planet as a living organism with a mind of its own... "

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